Wow, I am a slacker! All this teaching at school and working through some issues with my children has taken a huge toll on my creativity and blog time. I took these pictures back in October, and decided it was high time to get them uploaded.

My son, The Rock, was working on identifying key names at the time. Now, this child’s favorite toys are cowboy and indian plastic figures. He will play for hours with those little plastic men, so I devised a way cool (in his mind) game for piano.

First, we started off with our men. The Rock decided to be the green army man, and placed his guy at the top of the top of the keyboard. I was assigned the blue cowboy, and my guy started out at the bottom of the keyboard.

Then, The Rock drew a card, and moved his man to the appropirate key. I did the same, and we kept going along like that. Our goal was to get our little man to the opposite end of the keyboard first.

My son, of course, won. Funny how I never seem to win a game. You’d think I stacked the deck, or “accidentally” let him have two turns in a row every now and again. Oh, well.😉

You can make cards with the letter names easily enough, or you can use my Musical Alphabet Cards. You will want to pring up several sets of the cards for this game – I’d suggest at least 5. This game can be modified to include sharps and flats, tones of a particular scale, or whatever you can come up with. Have fun. My son and I sure did.

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16 Responses

So glad to see you are back!! I am so excited about your game. Why didn’t I think of it?? I have a second grade beginner who is just learning the key names. Guess what we will be playing on Wednesday? Thanks a bunch.

Nice game here. This would surely be a very interesting and exciting game both for the students and the teachers. Activities or musical games like this can actually help you get their attention, make them interested, and establish camaraderie not only between you and them but also among themselves. I agree with you: this can surely be a fun-filled learning experience. Keep up the good work and continue to share your bright thoughts and ideas, which I think are all useful to many music teachers, school administrators and even studio managers out there. Please also share more relevant studio management tips and resources – giving us more rooms for effectiveness and efficiency. Thanks again and see you around. Cheers!

What a cute post! The pictures really add to what you are trying to convey. I used to use color coordinates on the keyboard to help students identify keys. I like your idea much better. Nice blog, cheers!